5 Mistakes Teachers Make Teaching Reading Strategies
Do you ever feel pressure when it comes to teaching reading strategies? I remember when I became a 2nd grade teacher and was told that this is the grade when I need to shift them from learning to read to reading to learn. WOW. That is a huge responsibility in the best way and a scary way! What an incredible journey to watch these precious little minds and little hearts go on. BUT now it was time to get them ready with reading strategies and tools to be strong readers.
I want to share with you the lessons that I learned along of way of what not to do and more importantly what you can do instead. I hope these strategies help to improve your lessons and make teaching reading strategies one of your favorite subjects to teach (like it is for me)!
1. Don’t Teach Reading Strategies in Isolation
By this I mean don’t teach the definition one time, practice on a few specifically tailored passages and then move on never to be though of again.
Instead…
Immerse your lessons in one reading strategy, but then discuss it with a variety of texts and read alouds. Use centers and spiral review to keep revisiting the reading strategy and applying it in a variety of ways. Reading strategies should be consistently mentioned and reviewed. Students will one day be using all of these reading strategies together interchangeably.
2. Make Sure to Not Forget to Teach Reading Strategies in Context of BOOKS
So often our young readers are taught important reading skills by reading a short paragraph and answering questions or applying the skills. Yes, this is very helpful for standardized testing but is not as effective in building a better independent reader.
Instead…
Teaching reading to our little learners should start and end with them holding a book. The more eyes on text time students get the better!
I find it to be so important for students to be taught students a reading skill in the context of a book. Think alouds is how I do this in my classroom. I have found that when my students watch me reading a book and thinking about finding an inference to understand the story, it shows the value of reading strategies for understanding books better.
Mentor texts make the perfect vehicle for teaching and modeling reading strategies!
3. Don’t Expect Students to Be Able to Talk About the Strategy Without a Sentence Frame
Have you ever asked your students to make a prediction and an evaluation is flying out of their mouth faster than you can stop them to redirect? No matter what we are focusing on, students naturally will have thoughts and opinions all over the map in response to a text.
If you ask questions with no structured response, you will get responses with no structure.
Instead…
The secret to structured on topic responses- sentence frames!
These sentence frames give students confidence to participate and a focused way to start their answer. Continually using these sentence frames over and over throughout the year really helps students to remember the skill. For example when promoted to make an evaluation hearing or seeing the sentence frame “I agree/ disagree…” will remind them what it means to make an evaluation.
I have seen tremendous growth and improvement in my students ability to successfully use the reading strategies and their willingness to participate in interactive read alouds using these sentence frames.
4. Do Not Forget ON LEVEL Practice!
As much as I love teaching skills with picture books, I always make it a priority to make with text on their level after. If students are below grade level then they need books or passages on their level to apply the skill to independently. When we read a text with or for a student it alters how they are comprehending the information.
This is also where I LOVE wordless picture books! I have had many students who their independent reading level did not often have many stories that in depth enough to apply all of the reading strategies. Wordless picture books allow students to practice interpreting a text and apply a skill without the blockage of decoding.
Some examples on level practice that I like to use are:
- leveled readers- just be careful to read the books in advance to see which skill matches the text
- passages
- task cards
My Comprehension Crew Bundle has a huge variety of passages with differentiation options for many levels. Each passage was specifically written to practice a reading strategy.
Last but certainly not least the final mistake teachers make when teaching reading strategies…
5. Not Making It FUN!
There is SO much pressure on us teachers to get our students to a certain reading proficiency level, but we need to make the journey there FUN so the students want to come along for the ride!
It has been proven that kids make lasting meaningful connections when they are having fun while learning.
Ideas for how to do this:
- use high interest text
- dress up in costume like a character in the book
- book clubs with their friends
- integrate movement around the room with task cards
- have students act out a story
- combine a hands on craft with reading skill
- make the strategy concrete
I hope these ideas helps you to plan and enjoy fun meaningful reading strategy lessons with your students!
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